Sound Commentary - Your Wise Guide to Audiobooks and Audio Book Reviews

Three Stations by Martin Cruz Smith

Martin Cruz-Smith's novels include Stalin's Ghost, Gorky Park, Rose, December 6, Polar Star and Stallion Gate. A two-time winner of the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers and a recipient of Britain's Golden Dagger Award, he lives in California.

*The Hittite by Ben Bova

A six-time winner of science fiction’s Hugo Award, a former editor of Analog and former fiction editor of Omni, and a past president of the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Writers of America, BEN BOVA is the author of over a hundred works of science fact and fiction.

The Island by Elin Hilderbrand

Elin Hilderbrand lives on Nantucket with her husband and their three young children. She grew up in Collegeville, PA, and traveled extensively before settling on Nantucket, which has been the setting for her eight previous novels. Hilderbrand is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the graduate fiction workshop at the University of Iowa.

The News Where You Are by Catherine O'Flynn

Catherine O'Flynn's debut novel, What Was Lost, won the Costa First Novel Award in 2007, was short-listed for The Guardian First Book Award, and was long-listed for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. She lives in Birmingham, England.

Insatiable by Meg Cabot

Meg Cabot was born in Bloomington, Indiana. In addition to writing adult contemporary fiction, she is the author of the bestselling young adult fiction series The Princess Diaries. She lives in Key West, Florida, with her husband.

Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard

Jonathan L. Howard is a game designer and scriptwriter who has worked in the computer games industry since the early nineties, notably co-scripting the first three Broken Sword adventure games. This is his first novel. He lives near Bristol with his wife and daughter.

Crisis Economics by Nouriel Roubini

Nouriel Roubini is a professor of economics at New York University's Stern School of Business. He has extensive senior policy experience in the federal government, having served from 1998 to 2000 in the White House and the U.S. Treasury. He is the founder and chairman of RGE Monitor (rgemonitor.com), an economic and financial consulting firm, regularly attends and presents his views at the World Economic Forum at Davos and other international forums, and is an adviser to central bankers around the world. Stephen Mihm writes on economic and historical topics for The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe, and other publications. The recipient of numerous fellowships, he was the Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellow in Business History at Harvard Business School from 2003 to 2004. He is currently an associate professor of history at the University of Georgia, where he teaches courses on American political, cultural, and economic history.

*King of the Vagabonds by Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson is the author of seven previous novels. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

*Zoo Story by Thomas French

THOMAS FRENCH has been a journalist for three decades. For most of that time, he worked as a reporter at the St. Petersburg Times, where he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. He now teaches journalism at Indiana University.

Twilight at the World of Tomorrow by James Mauro

James Mauro is a former editor of Spy magazine and executive editor of Cosmopolitan. Most recently he was editorial director for Moffly Media, publishers of the Connecticut periodicals Greenwich, Stamford, Westport, New Canaan Darien, and AtHome. His writing has been featured in Radar, Details, Spy, Psychology Today, and a host of other publications.

*Body Work by Sara Paretsky

Sara Paretsky is credited with breaking the gender barrier in detective fiction with the creation of her hard-boiled female detective, V. I. Warshawski. In mysteries that have been translated into more than 20 languages, the no-nonsense and sexy V.I. keeps her eye on the city of Chicago, distributing justice to everyone from corporate crooks to government phonies and street hustlers.

The Ninth by Harvey Sachs

Harvey Sachs is a writer and music historian and the author or co-author of eight previous books, of which there have been more than fifty editions in fifteen languages. He has written for The New Yorker and many other publications, has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and is currently on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He lives in New York City.

Getting to Happy by Terry Macmillan

Terry McMillan fell in love with books as a teenager while working at the local library. She studied journalism at UC Berkeley and screenwriting at Columbia before making her fiction debut with Mama, which won both the Doubleday New Voices in Fiction Award and the American Book Award. She lives in Northern California.

*Moscow Sting by Alex Dryden

Alex Dryden is a writer and journalist with many years of experience in security matters. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, Dryden watched the statues of Lenin fall across the former Soviet Union. Since then he has charted the false dawn of democracy in Russia as the country morphed into the world's most powerful secret state. Dryden's knowledge of the secret world in this new and growing East-West conflict has informed both of his novels Red to Black and Moscow Sting.

Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat

Farley Mowat has recorded his experiences in several highly successful books for both adults and children, including People of the Deer, The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, The Desperate People, A Whale for the Killing, and The Boat Who Wouldn't Float.

Hell Gate by Linda Fairstein

Linda Fairstein is America's foremost legal expert on crimes of sexual assault and domestic violence. She led the Sex Crimes Unit of the district attorney's office in Manhattan for twenty-five years. Her eleven previous Alexandra Cooper novels have been critically acclaimed international bestsellers, translated into more than a dozen languages.

*Nemesis by Lindsey Davis

LINDSEY DAVIS, author of over twenty novels, is most famous for her internationally bestselling, award-wining historical mystery series featuring Marcus Didius Falco. She lives in London, England.

The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

Stephen Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for thirty years, and has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors including, most recently, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His books for the general reader include the classic A Brief History of Time, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, The Universe in a Nutshell, and A Briefer History of Time. He lives in Cambridge, England. www.hawking.org.uk Leonard Mlodinow is a physicist at Caltech and the bestselling author of The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives, Euclid’s Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace, and Feynman’s Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life. He also wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation. He lives in South Pasadena, California. www.its.caltech.edu/~len

The Gates of Rome by Conn Iggulden

Conn Iggulden is the author of three novels about Genghis Khan, as well as the Emperor novels. He is also the coauthor of the bestseller The Dangerous Book for Boys. He lives with his wife and children in Hertfordshire, England.

The Liar's Lullaby by Meg Gardiner

Meg Gardiner is the author of two previous Jo Beckett thrillers, as well as five novels in the Evan Delaney series, one of which, China Lake, won the Edgar Award in 2009. Originally from Santa Barbara, California, she now lives in London.

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

H.G. Wells (1866–1946) was a professional writer and journalist who published more than a hundred books, including novels, histories, essays, and programs for world regeneration.

Think! by Edward De Bono

Edward de Bono studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and has held appointments at the universities of Oxford, London, Cambridge, and Harvard. In 1967, de Bono invented the now commonly used term "lateral thinking" and his name has since become a symbol of creativity and new thinking. He has written numerous books including Lateral Thinking and Six Thinking Hats.

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad was born to Polish parents in the Russian-dominated Ukraine in 1857. He was orphaned at the age of 11. At 16, Conrad left Poland for France to fulfill his ambition to go to sea. He rose to position of Master Mariner in the British Merchant Navy and his time at sea provided him with rich material for his stories. Conrad settled in Britain in 1894. His works also include: Lord Jim and Nostromo.

The Tower on the Rift by Ian Irvine

Ian Irvine is a marine scientist who has developed some of Australia's national guidelines for the protection of the oceanic environment, as well as an author of bestselling fantasy novels and futuristic eco-thrillers. Check out his website: www.ian-irvine.com

*The Heretic's Wife by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

BRENDA RICKMAN VANTREASE is a former English teacher and librarian whose bestselling debut, The Illuminator, was translated into over a dozen languages. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

The Memorist/The Hypnotist by M.J. Rose

M.J. Rose, is the international bestselling author of ten novels. She is a founding member and board member of International Thriller Writers and the founder of the first marketing company for authors: AuthorBuzz.com.

*Dog Tags by David Rosenfelt

Stay by Allie Larkin

Allie Larkin lives in Rochester, New York, with her husband and their two German Shepherds. Stay is her first novel.

The Midnight House by Alex Berenson

As a reporter for The New York Times, Alex Berenson has covered topics ranging from the occupation of Iraq to the flooding of New Orleans to the financial crimes of Bernie Madoff. His previous novels include The Faithful Spy, winner of the 2007 Edgar Award for best first novel, and The Ghost War.

Storm Prey by John Sandford

John Sandford is the author of twenty Prey novels and nine other books, most recently the Virgil Flowers novel Rough Country.

The Postcard Killers by James Patterson and Lisa Marklund

James Patterson is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past twenty-five years, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. Patterson also writes the bestselling Women's Murder Club novels, set in San Francisco, and the top-selling New York detective series, featuring Detective Michael Bennett. Liza Marklund is a Swedish journalist and author of the Annika Bengtzon series, which has sold 9 million copies in 30 languages. She lives in Sweden and Spain.

Where Men Win Glory by John Krakauer

Jon Krakauer is the author of Eiger Dreams, Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, and Under the Banner of Heaven and is the editor of the Modern Library Exploration series.